


Seven And A Half Light Years

by minkowski



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Conspiracy, F/F, High School, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-01-19 06:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12405351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkowski/pseuds/minkowski
Summary: Doug Eiffel is a (mostly) normal high school student going to a (mostly) abnormal high school. His goal is simple: to make it through the next two years without anything catastrophic happening, to not get murdered by his roommate, and to expend the minimal amount of effort possible.There are obstacles. Naturally. Because he's Doug Eiffel, and this is what happens. There's the aforementioned roommate, Alexander Hilbert, who might be a seventy-year-old trapped in a teenager's body. There's chronic overachiever Renée Minkowski, who hates Eiffel for (mostly) no reason. There's also Mr. Cutter's weird vibes, which he's trying to ignore, because, again: nothing catastrophic.Things grow hard to ignore, however, as some students begin to notice strange things happening around Goddard Futuristics School For Alternative Learning. A group of students is forced to band together to understand the mysterious forces at work, and, most importantly, graduate without getting murdered.Plus, the destructive potential of papier-mâché volcanoes, A New Way To Learn!, well-meaning ducks, Pizza Hut, and the worst superhero team of all time.





	1. Welcome To Wolf 359

Doug Eiffel stood outside the classroom, shifting his backpack from his left to right shoulder. He was already six—no, seven—minutes late for his first period of his first day of junior year of his first day at Goddard Futuristics High School For Alternative Learning (a name which still made him roll his eyes). A few more minutes wouldn’t change anything.

He wasn’t _trying_ to be late. Actually, for maybe the first time in his life, he had planned on showing up on time. Maybe even a few minutes early, if he _really_ wanted to make an impression. But he had discovered that maybe he should have taken the tour that Mr. Cutter had offered. Although the school boosted small class sizes and a selective admission process, the building was one of the largest Eiffel had ever encountered; he’d wandered up and down six discrete staircases before happening upon this classroom.

And yet Mr. Cutter had still been able to find him. That would be another excuse that Eiffel would use, he decided, when the teacher decided to ask him what _took him so long to join the rest of the class, Douglas._ Mr. Cutter had found Doug at the end of a long hallway, _The Shining_ -style, and forced him into a meeting. Or, no—a “friendly chat.” That was how the vice principal had put it, giving Eiffel a playful punch on the shoulder.

“Ready for your first day, rockstar?” Cutter had said, giving Eiffel a blindingly white grin.

“Yep,” said Eiffel, resisting the urge to rub his shoulder. He could feel a bruise forming.

“You know where your first class is?” said Cutter, still beaming.

“Yep,” said Eiffel, still lying. It wasn't like he was trying to be rude—Cutter seemed like a decent enough guy, even if he dressed like it was the 1920s and called people things like _rockstar_ and _champ._ He had figured that if he didn’t say anything stupid to the vice principal, the _actual_ principal wouldn’t hear anything about it, and he could avoid “disciplinary action.” And since it was hard to gauge what would count as “anything stupid” until it was already out of his mouth, well, it made sense to avoid saying anything at all.

“Nothing stupid,” Eiffel repeated to himself, hand hovering above the doorknob. It had become a kind of mantra. It was easier to remember than _Don’t get kicked out of Goddard Futuristics High School For Alternative Learning._ And anyway, weren’t you supposed to make positive statements when setting goals? Not use the word “don’t” anywhere? Some guidance counsellor had told him that, he remembered. Positive goals, not negative ones. Although, was “nothing stupid” technically positive? Or—

“Shut up,” he muttered to himself, raking a hand through his greasy hair. He pulled his hair into a tangled ponytail, swallowed hard, and pushed open the door.

Standing in the small classroom, plans of sneaking in and finding a seat somewhere in the back flew out the window. He frowned, trying to understand the situation. There was no teacher at the front of the small room. There was no chalkboard, or whiteboard, or inspirational posters, or anything that might clarify that this was, in fact, a classroom, not a refurbished prison cell. There were six students scattered through the room, all crouched over a textbook or a laptop. Only one girl looked up. She frowned, looking as though she wanted to give him a detention, then turned a page in her textbook.

It wasn’t promising, but it was the closest thing he had to a human connection. Might as well explore the blossoming friendship.

“Hey,” he muttered, sliding into a free chair.

The girl looked up from her textbook, gave him a quick nod, and looked back down.

Well. Not a fantastic start, but he’d done worse. “I got lost,” he said, perhaps unnecessarily. “This school is like a freakin’ _maze,_ dude.”

The girl took her eyes off the page for more than two seconds, which Eiffel viewed as a good sign. “Didn’t you use the map?”

Eiffel snorted, half-sure she was joking. “What map?”

“The _map._ It’s on the front page of the school handbook.”

“Oh. Well, that would explain that. I lost my school handbook, like, the day they sent it in the mail. Do they really think anyone _reads_ those?”

A line appeared between the girl’s eyebrows. “Founders Pryce and Carter clearly state in the introduction to the handbook that general understanding—preferably memorization—of the rules and regulations of Goddard are absolutely necessary to attend this school. They don’t just let anybody in Goddard, you know. You don’t want to get kicked out over losing the handbook.”

“Oh.” Eiffel decided it might be best to pivot to a new topic, given that the stranger was staring at him like he’d burned a Bible. “Uh, this _is_ Communications, right? Where’s the teacher?”

The girl was looking more irritated (and somewhat concerned) by the second. “Page two of the handbook. ‘Most classes are either taught by student professors as part of our expeditionary learning program, or simply self-taught. Students are expected to meet the requirements outlined by the syllabi, or meet with Mr. Cutter to discuss an individualized learning program.’”

Eiffel gave a disbelieving laugh. “So we’re basically teaching ourselves?”

The line between her eyebrows was growing deeper and more concerned. “You _are_ a student here, right? You didn’t just show up?”

Deciding that the interaction was going from bad to worse, Eiffel decided to rely on the classic, always-successful Doug Eiffel Original: talk about the first thing in your line of sight. This happened to be a binder labeled simply MINKOWSKI: COMMUNICATIONS. Of course she labeled her binders. Of course she had a _label maker_. “Uh, so, Minkowski! Is that your name?”

She pressed her lips together. “Min- _kov_ -ski. Renée Minkowski.”

“Ah. Sorry about that. Doug Eiffel’s my name, but people call me Eiffel, mostly ’cause it sounds cooler. Sorry—I don’t really know anyone’s name. First day, you know? Transfer student? Anyway.” He cleared his throat, wishing his voice didn’t get so high when he was scrambling like this. “I’m a junior. You?”

“Senior.” There was a brief flicker of expression that could have been a smile, but it faded away too quickly for Eiffel to tell. “I don’t know anyone’s name, either. Another clueless transfer student.”

“Shit, really? Cool. You must have, like, _really_ hated your school to transfer your senior year, right? You get expelled after a cocaine bust or something? Selling SAT answers?” He grinned. “If you have the patience to read that frickin’ handbook, you’ve got the brains to run a nationwide drug corporation. I won’t judge.”

Whatever trace of a smile had crossed Minkowski’s face was long gone, replaced with a steely scowl. “I wasn’t involved in a _cocaine bust._ I know you didn’t exactly do your research before coming here, but for your information, Goddard Futuristics is a prestigious school with a highly selective application process. I chose to transfer because of the career advancement opportunities it offered, not because I, ‘like, really hated my school.’”

Eiffel knew he had two or three inches on Minkowski, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was shrinking. It was, naturally, at this moment that his backpack decided to start screaming like a possessed alien.

Minkowski jumped about a foot in the air, grey eyes wide. “What the _hell?”_ she bellowed above the screeching. A few other students were scowling in Eiffel’s direction, hands over their ears.

“Sorry, sorry!” squeaked Eiffel, feeling his face heat up by approximately one thousand degrees. He dove into his backpack, fumbling with the zipper, and pulling out a homemade transistor radio. “I must have forgotten to turn it off, or something…”

He fumbled with the volume knob to no avail. It had been acting up lately, so of _course_ it would go off in the middle of his first Communications class. 

The squawking grew almost unbearable. “Can you turn that _off?”_ hollered Minkowski, hands over her ears.

“I’m _trying!_ Jesus! I don’t know what’s going on, it must have picked up some weird signal…”

He frantically wiggled the antennae back and forth. The noise turned from screeching to static, which wasn’t much better. 

“Wait,” he mumbled, more to himself than to his fellow students. He heard something—if he moved the antennae to just the right angle, if he held it in place, if he lifted the radio above his left knee—there was something, wasn’t there?—a crackle of static, a pop, and— _there!_ It was crackling with static, almost groaning in pain, but there was a strain of music. He wasn’t exactly a musical expert, but he recognized a few string instruments, and maybe a piano, and—

The signal faded to the snowy static of a few seconds earlier. Then there was a loud pop, like a balloon bursting, and silence.

“Are you joking?” muttered Eiffel to himself, smacking at the side of the homemade radio. “Stupid wire must have snapped or something.” He glanced up at Minkowski, who was just now removing her hands from her ears. “You know where I could get some copper wire around here?”

Minkowski gave him a look bordering on murder. “Can we just study?” she said in a slow, dangerous voice. “You know—what we came here to do?”

The classroom stayed silent for the remainder of the hour.

* * *

 Hera put her hand to her head, feeling the texture of silky red ribbon against rough black hair. She didn’t bother to turn towards the mirror. She didn’t especially want to see herself this morning.

“It’s fine if you’re late. I’ll let them know.”

“I know.” Hera stared at the whitewashed wall, wondering if she could will colours to appear. It could happen, if she focused hard enough.

“Be polite.”

“I know.”

“You deserve to be here, Hera.”

“I know.”

“You know I love you, don’t you? You know I worked hard to get you here, don’t you?”

Ten long, long fingers tangled through Hera’s long, long hair.

“Hera, I want to hear you say it. You know that I love you, don’t you?”

“I know.”

“Say it.”

Hera stared ahead blankly. “Love you.”

* * *

Eiffel had given up on optimism sometime around noon and was just doing his best to survive.

“One day down,” he muttered to himself, running a hand along the rough bricks that lined the corridors. “A billion to go.”

He rounded the corner, cursing himself for instantly losing the school handbook. He could use a map right about now. Then he cursed himself for wishing he had the school handbook like some type of nerd. 

It hadn’t been a perfect day, he decided. That was fair to say. It wasn’t as though he had expected anything special—school days for Eiffel were pretty hit-or-miss, with an emphasis on _miss._ Still, when he imagined his first day at Goddard Futuristics, somehow, he had been stupid enough to hope for a better day than _this._

“Ground floor,” he muttered to himself, clambering down what felt like the millionth staircase this day. “Ground floor, wing B, room 4—aha!”

He fumbled his key in the lock—thank God he hadn’t managed to lose _that—_ swung open the door, and was nearly knocked over by the smell of burning plastic.

“Oh, God,” he choked out, pulling his t-shirt over his nose as a makeshift gas mask. His eyes watered with a vengeance, blurring his vision. He blinked them away and could make out a tall, spidery figure hunched over a few Erlenmeyer flasks.

“Bah!” The figure let out a snort, and the flame he was bent over died away. “Next time, you _knock._ Yes?”

“What?” rasped Eiffel, still struggling not to pass out. He noted that the stranger was wearing an _actual_ face mask, something which might have come in candy. “What are you _doing?”_

“I am doing none of your business.” The stranger spoke with a thick Russian accent, and when he straightened up, Eiffel could see he had a good six inches on him. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

“I’m—I’m your roommate,” sputtered Eiffel, holding up his key as proof. “Doug Eiffel?”

The stranger gazed at him, lip curling. He scowled at the key, as though trying to find some flaw with it. “Well, roommate or no, you must knock. You distracted me. I was performing important experiment.”

“Oh. Can you, uh…” The odor was fading, but it was still powerful. “Isn’t there, I don’t know—a lab that you can use?”

“Not for these experiments. Secret. Important.” The stranger folded his arms across his chest. “I am Alexander Hilbert. Here with Goddard’s expeditionary learning program. I am not a student—I am a scientist.”

“You’re…not a student?” Eiffel was beginning to wish he hadn’t found his room. Sleeping in the halls would be uncomfortable, but nothing could be more uncomfortable than this conversation.

He grunted. “Well, not technically. I am here to learn and to educate. To explore career opportunities with Goddard. I do not take traditional classes—I explore my chosen area of study, and Goddard gives me funding.” He straightened his glasses and ran a hand through a scraggly, white-blond beard. “I am Alexander Hilbert. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Oh.” Eiffel swallowed. He noticed that Hilbert was wearing a red, most likely hand-knitted hat, and he didn’t seem to have a whole lot, if any, hair underneath. He wasn’t old enough to be going bald, was he? “Uh, not to be rude, but—how old are you?”

“Twenty.” Hilbert sized up Eiffel. “You are sixteen. They give me a _child_.”

Eiffel raised his eyebrows. “You can tell that by looking at me? Are you, like, one of those freaky guys at carnivals who can guess your age and weight?”

Hilbert snorted. “I know several things about you, Doug Eiffel. Mr. Cutter allowed me to learn about you. I am genius, but cannot guess age.”

“Oh. Oh, okay. Wait, can I have some context on the, uh, several things you know about me? What did Mr. Cutter—”

Hilbert waved him away, turning off the Bunsen burner. “Unimportant. I am going to the library. Remember—before entering, you _knock.”_

“Okay.” Just before the door clicked shut, Eiffel realized that this bizarre man might be helpful—he seemed like the type to know where things were, and, well— “Hey! Hilbert! You know where I could find a germanium diode?”

Hilbert poked his head through the door, blinking. “A germanium diode?”

“Yeah. I, uh—I built a radio, but I think I’m gonna need to rebuild it, and I was just wondering if you knew where—”

“Engineering Lab. Ground floor.” Hilbert looked as though he had a question, but he seemed to think better of it. “I did not know you were interested in radios.”

“That wasn’t part of what you, uh, learned about me?”

“No.” Hilbert shook his head. “Interesting. Remember to knock.”

He disappeared without another word.

Eiffel realized that his mouth was still hanging open with an unasked question, and he clamped his jaw shut. At least the smell of the plastic—or was it something else? It was hard to tell—was starting to fade, although he couldn’t tell if it was really fading or if he was just getting used to it. 

“I’m going to have to get used to a lot of things,” he muttered to himself. 

Apparently Hilbert had claimed the bottom bunk—there were half a dozen Russian books spread over the bedsheets. Sighing, Eiffel climbed to the top bunk and threw himself back onto the hard mattress. It was late—though the minuscule room didn’t have any windows, he knew that it had been dark for hours now, and though he wasn’t exactly the early-to-bed type, he could feel his eyelids growing heavy.

Instinctively, Eiffel reached for his radio. He flicked the volume up, then down. He gave the antennae a few gentle flicks. Nothing.

Yet even without the hum of the radio, he found himself succumbing to sleep quicker than any time in recent memory.

* * *

 A few hallways down, Renée Minkowski was dreaming. In the library, Alexander Hilbert was not. Further away, Hera was removing the ribbons from her hair. Not far away at all, a radio tower blinked on and off, on and off—the only light for miles. If anyone had looked out their window, they would have seen the glow. If Eiffel had turned on his radio, he would have heard the symphony.


	2. Upon Further Consideration Your Application Has Still Been Ignored

There was something different about waking up in a strange bedroom. Minkowski chalked it up to homesickness, and also the fact that there was a stranger approximately two inches away staring her down.

“Gah!” she choked, tangled in her sheets. She bolted upright, smacking her head painfully on the top bunk.

The stranger didn’t seem fazed. “You’re Renée Minkowski?” she said, swinging a small duffel bag over her shoulder.

“What? No. Yes. Who the hell _are_ you?” Minkowski wished she had had the foresight to place a knife or something on her bedside table. Unfortunately, she hadn’t planned for the very real scenario of an _axe murderer_ showing up on her second day of school.

The stranger gave her a long, perplexed stare. “I’m your roommate, apparently. Heard of it?” She threw the duffel on the top bunk, then scaled the ladder in a few long steps. “I would call top bunk, but I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”

Minkowski rubbed the egg-shaped lump already forming on her head, trying to slow her heart rate. “I—I didn’t know I had a roommate,” she said in her best approximation of a calm voice. “What time did you show up, anyway?”

“Hour or so ago. My flight got delayed. Figured there wasn’t much point in trying to sleep, so I’ve just been chilling here.”

Minkowski squinted at the glowing hands on her watch. 5:42. Letting out a soft groan, she threw herself back down onto her pillow. “Well, it’s nice to meet you. You think next time, you could maybe—not do that?"

The stranger’s head swung down. “Do what?”

Minkowski’s initial panic was fading into an emotion she was far more familiar with—irritation. “Stare at me for an hour while I sleep,” she said, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “Not the best first impression.”

The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “Jesus, keep it in your pants, Minkowski. I barely noticed you were here for the first fifty-nine minutes. Just wanted to check you out, see if you looked like an asshole.” _Jury’s still out,_ her silence seemed to imply.

Minkowski pressed her lips together, biting back irritation. She felt an apology might be in order, but she refused to grant the stranger that satisfaction. “What’s your name?” she said, hoping that changing the subject might defuse some of the tension.”

“Lovelace. Isabel Lovelace. Eleventh grade. You?”

“Twelfth. I’m new here.”

Lovelace quirked an eyebrow, looking interested for the first time since she’d stepped in the room. “Same. Well, sort of—I’ve been in communication with Goddard since freshman year, and they allowed me to earn some credits off-campus, but this is my first year here-here. How come you transferred your senior year? You get expelled or something?”

Minkowski groaned. “Why does everybody here seem to think I got expelled?”

“Probably ’cause half of us did. Not me,” Lovelace was quick to add, “but a bunch of kids came here because there was nowhere else to go, and Goddard seems to have a soft spot for problem kids.”

“Well, I’m not a _problem kid,_ ” said Minkowski. “I got here because I worked on that application for months. And I’m here to take advantage of the career opportunities, not just float along because no other school wants to take me.”

Lovelace gave Minkowski an amused look. “Calm down, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid. I’m older than you.”

“You’re—what, seventeen? Only like a year older.” Lovelace yawned, stretching her long, lithe arms. “What time do classes start around here?”

“Eight-thirty.” Minkowski stared pointedly at her watch. “So we’ve got time.” Irritation bubbled up in her throat, and before she could stop herself, her voice twisted into something harsh. “Look, I’m not an expert or anything, but I think if you’re trying to make a good impression, you shouldn’t show up a day late.”

There was a long pause. In the dark, Minkowski saw Lovelace’s head swing over from the top bunk again. She gave Minkowski a fierce stare, curly hair falling over her dark eyes.

“I’m going to tell you this once,” said Lovelace, her voice slow and even. “I have absolutely no interest in making a _good impression_ or making friends with you or anyone else here. I’m here because I deserve to be here every bit as much as you. So if you want to ignore me, go on ahead—doesn’t matter to me. But if you’re going to be an asshole, if you’re going to act like you’re better than me—” Lovelace gave Minkowski a smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes. “We’re going to have a problem.”

Minkowski blinked. As disoriented as she was, she couldn’t help but feel a little terrified of this stranger. 

Lovelace was still staring at her. Even upside-down, she was infinitely more composed than Minkowski. “Got it?”

“Got it,” said Minkowski slowly.

Apparently, this was good enough for Lovelace, who swung herself upwards without another word. Minkowski could hear her breathing quietly. Her breaths were not the soft, even breaths of someone who was sleeping. Lovelace was still awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking.

Something about this made it impossible for Minkowski, no matter how exhausted she might have been, to fall asleep either. 

* * *

Much too early in the morning, Daniel Jacobi felt a textbook collide with his face. “Up and at ’em, Danny boy.”

Jacobi moaned, pressing his face into his pillow. “Five more minutes.”

A second textbook—a heavier one—hit his shoulder. “Nope. I’ve already let you sleep too late.”

“‘Too late’ is relative.” Jacobi forced himself into a sitting position, yawning and blinking the sleep from his eyes. Across the room, he could see his roommate, Warren Kepler, peering into a mirror, smoothing down his dark red hair. “How come you look like you’re ready for a trip to the White House? It’s…” He glanced at his watch. “It’s barely seven.”

“Being a morning person is a matter of diligence, my dear Jacobi.” Kepler flashed him a perfectly white grin, the type he knew Jacobi hated this early in the morning. “A matter of diligence and lots of instant coffee.”

Jacobi yawned, running a hand through his hair. It was nowhere near as neat as Kepler’s, though that was to be expected—his unruly black hair never came close to Kepler’s level of perfection, even on a good day. “You have coffee?”

Kepler nodded to a mug next to the mirror, running a comb through his hair. “You’ve got to get out of bed to get it.”

“Asshole.” Jacobi heaved himself out of bed, nearly tripping on his way down the ladder. “You’re in a good mood this morning,” he noted, sipping the black coffee. Perfect. Beautiful, instant, synthetic perfection.

Kepler gave Jacobi a sideways look and a cocky grin. “I’m not always in a good mood?”

Jacobi snorted.

“Well, yes, now that you mention it, I am feeling pretty good right now.” He gave his reflection a final once-over and took a sip of his own coffee. “Mr. Cutter and I had a talk last night, you know."

Jacobi raised an eyebrow. “A talk?”

“Oh, you know.” He examined his nails, and Jacobi had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Kepler always had a flair for the dramatic, especially on those days when he was feeling confident. Today, apparently, was one of those days. “Nothing too important—a discussion about the influx of new students, about my plans after this year.”

Jacobi nodded. Kepler was entering his fourth and last year at Goddard; considering how few students stayed four whole years, he was considered something of a veteran. Jacobi had only enrolled his sophomore year—recruited by Kepler, incidentally—and was only starting his junior year.

Even if Kepler hadn't had the seniority, even if he wasn’t such a loyal student, Jacobi got the feeling that he would have had a close relationship with Mr. Cutter anyway. Kepler was just one of those people: charming to a fault, and good at getting what he wanted.

“But we _were_ talking about, you know, some of the…career possibilities that Goddard offers,” said Kepler, grinning at Jacobi.

Jacobi’s eyes widened. “Career possibilities? You mean—working here? With, you know, Cutter?”

Kepler stared into his dregs of coffee. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself here. But yes, Cutter _did_ bring that up as an option.”

The conversation was interrupted by a sharp rap at the door. “You guys decent?”

“Physically, yes,” began Kepler, beginning the inside joke.

“Morally, no,” finished Jacobi, opening the door to the familiar voice. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Alana Maxwell glanced around the room, dark eyebrows lifting in approval. “Nice room.”

“Yeah, well, privileges of rooming with Goddard’s finest, I guess.” It was true that Kepler and Jacobi seemed to get the nicest room the school had to offer, although space was still pretty tight. 

“Speaking of Goddard’s finest…” Maxwell, in her four-foot-eleven-inch, fourteen-year-old glory, gave Kepler a sideways grin. “I heard a rumour that _somebody_ might be moving up in the ranks.”

Jacobi’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? How did you find that out before _me?”_

Maxwell grinned. “Oh, I’ve got my ways.”

Neither Jacobi nor Kepler tried to press her for more information. She might have been the youngest of the threesome, but she was already a junior, and probably could have skipped straight to university if she wanted to. If Maxwell said she knew the information, then she knew it—whether she had listened through the vents or through some sort of secret microphone, she always seemed to know everything.

“So.” Maxwell stole a sip from Jacobi’s mug. “Elaborate.”

“Oh, nothing much—I’ve pretty much told Jacobi everything. To make a long story short, Cutter says that if I keep my grades up and don’t do anything stupid, he can pull a few strings and maybe find me an internship with Goddard.” He paused, looking a little less self-assured. “Plus, you know, he didn’t say anything, but I’m almost _guaranteed_ the position of student ambassador.”

Maxwell snorted. “Well, duh. You’ve had it for two years running. You think you don’t have it in the bag your _senior year?”_

“Of course.” But Kepler’s voice had turned a little tense, and all three students knew why. The mention of two years running, the unspoken knowledge, the question everyone knew the answer to: _Why not three years running?_

Jacobi spoke up, attempting to keep the mood from turning sour—as annoying as Kepler could be when he was chipper, it was a thousand times worse for everyone when he was in a bad mood. “Oh, please. If you’re worried about Rachel—”

“I’m not worried.” There was an edge to Kepler’s voice.

“Yeah, and neither am I. Sure, Cutter’s impressed with her grades and her work ethic, but everyone knows she doesn’t have the same abilities as you. She’s just another try-hard who’s going to slip into mediocrity the second she leaves Goddard.”

_“Going_ to slip into mediocrity?” Kepler’s chin tilted upwards, and a smile spread like honey across his face. “She’s already there.”

Jacobi and Maxwell laughed in agreement, and Kepler stood up, straightening his jacket. “Ready to grab breakfast?”

Jacobi pulled a clean T-shirt over his head and ran a hand through his hair in a simulacrum of a hairbrush. “Sure.”

Maxwell stood up, still typing away at her phone. “Why not?”

Kepler pushed the door open, and the three walked down the tight corridor side by side. Jacobi took a deep breath, as he often did on this sort of morning, when the three of them were together, finishing each other’s sentences and laughing at each other’s jokes and planning their futures and understanding everything. _It won’t last forever,_ he reminded himself, as he always reminded himself. At Goddard, few things did.

But he wanted to believe that it would last forever—the smell of Kepler’s aftershave, the sly smiles he shared with Maxwell, the taste of instant coffee crystals still clinging to the roof of his mouth. So he kept his eyes ahead, and he listened to his friends talk, and hoped that they could make it through today without the school blowing up.

* * *

 

The office door swung open with no warning, nearly hitting Minkowski in the forehead. “Ah, Renée! I hope I didn’t leave you waiting.”

“No, sir.” Minkowski stood stiffly. It was a lie, of course—though that was more her fault than Cutter’s. She had been waiting on this bench outside the vice principal’s office for nearly two and a half hours by now, having shown up two hours early. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”

“Oh, the pleasure is all mine, Renée.” Cutter beckoned her in. “Tell me—how’s it been going? Fitting in okay? Making friends? Care for a drink? Water? Tea”

“Yes, sir,” Minkowski said. “I mean—yes, I’m making friends, but no, sir, I don't need a drink. Thank you, though.” She might have to lie her way through this conversation, but she was a good enough liar. “Uh—my roommate showed up this morning.”

“Oh, of course. Isabel.” Cutter chuckled, stirring his tea. “She’s just adorable, isn’t she?”

_That isn’t the way I would put it._ “I suppose so.” 

“Yes, she’s quite comical.” Cutter took a sip of his chai, looking reflective. “We’ve been in contact with her since she was thirteen, you know. Trying to get her to come to Goddard forever, but, well, that’s the thing about Isabel—she’s so _determined._ She said if we didn’t have a good basketball team, she wasn’t coming. She had an accident last year, though, injured her knee, and, well—we got her!” He beamed at Minkowski. “Every cloud has a silver lining, doesn’t it, Renée?”

“Yes, sir. Pryce and Carter #128.”

Cutter gave her a look of delight. “You’ve got quite a memory, Renée. I guess it’s just another reason why we chose you, right?”

Minkowski felt a wave of relief wash over her. _They chose me for a reason. They chose me. I deserve to be here._ “Thank you, sir.” She cleared her throat, smoothing her hands over her skirt. “Uh, sir—I, uh, I came here because I had a few questions about, er, the leadership opportunities that Goddard offers.”

Cutter raised an eyebrow. Now that they weren’t talking about Lovelace, he looked slightly less cheerful. “Oh?”

“Yes, sir.” Minkowski cleared her throat and lifted her chin, putting on her best I-was-the-president-of-Model-U.N.-and-we-won-states-so-it’s-kind-of-a-big-deal expression. “I’m interested in taking a leadership role. Part of the reason I applied to Goddard Futuristics was because of the career opportunities that this school offers. I notice that there’s a yearly position for the student ambassador, and I was wondering if—”

“Ah, yes. The student ambassador.” Cutter took another sip of the chai. “You’re certain you don’t want a drink? This is really quite delicious.”

“No, sir, that’s all right.” Minkowski got the uncomfortable sense that she had failed some sort of test. “I was wondering how one goes about applying for the position. If you’d like, sir, I’ve prepared a resume, and—”

She cut herself off. Cutter was chuckling, smiling at her with—what, pity? Amusement? Either way, she didn’t like it. “Sir, did I say something wrong?” she said, trying not to let on that her teeth were gritted.

“No, no. Oh, Renée, I _like_ you, you know that?” He kept laughing, shaking his head.

“Thank you, sir.”

“It’s just—” He smiled at her. No doubt about it—this smile was laced with pity, and Minkowski wanted to crawl out of her skin. “You’re so _tense._ Don’t worry so much! It’s not an elected position, all right? I choose a student who I believe possesses—ah— _potential_.”

“Oh. Okay.” Minkowski paused. “So do you want my resume, or—”

She stopped, swallowing hard. The smile had faded from Cutter’s face, and while he didn’t look upset, he there was an element of irritation lurking under his flat expression. “Uh, well, thank you for meeting with me, sir,” she said. 

Cutter nodded. “Renée, it’s like I told you—the pleasure is all mine.” He gave her a tight smile. “Promise me something: don’t worry your pretty little head so much, all right? Everything will turn out okay.”

She nodded stiffly. “Yes, sir.” Taking this as her cue to leave, she backed out of the door. For some reason, she didn’t want to turn her back on Cutter.

She waited until she was a good twenty meters from Cutter’s office to drive her fist into the wall. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._ It was stupid to arrange a meeting. She sounded cocky, some new student trying to take the position, trying to prove her worth, trying to prove that she deserved to be here when she didn’t, when she wasn’t a genius or a basketball pro or some stupid “problem student”—

“Stupid,” she muttered, pressing her head against the wall. _Pretty little head—_ could he be more condescending? It wasn’t that she didn’t deserve it, of course; it was stupid to set up an appointment, stupid to hope, stupid to…well, truthfully, she couldn’t think of a single thing she had done in the last 24 hours that wasn’t a completely idiotic move.

She took a deep breath and set off down the hallway, figuring that if she walked quickly enough, she could shake off her embarrassment. Eyes forward. Look ahead. Focus on the future, not the past. That was what she always did, and it always worked. She was successful. She was strong. She was going to—well, she was going to accomplish _something_ great, even if she didn’t quite know what that something was.

“Whoa!” A familiar voice jerked Minkowski out of her reverie. “Where’s the fire?”

Minkowski glanced up, feeling her heart sink. “Oh. Hi, Eiffel. No fire.”

“You’re sure?” Eiffel ran a hand through his hair. “Uh, are you—are you okay?”

“Fine,” Minkowski snapped, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Sure, Eiffel was a little annoying, but maybe she’d been a little too… _intense_ when they first met. She had a tendency towards intensity. “Uh, how—how are you?”

Eiffel looked taken aback. “Fine. I mean, you know.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s weird. But fine.”

“Yep.”

An uncomfortable silence descended over the two. Christ. Minkowski knew she wasn’t exactly an expert in social situations, but she thought she was better than _this._

“Well, uh—” Eiffel cleared his throat. “I’m heading back to my room. See you tomorrow, I guess?”

Minkowski hesitated, remembering something. “Wait. Eiffel—that first day, in Communications—you had that radio,” she blurted out roughly.

“Yeah?”

“Where’d you get it?”

Eiffel perked up, pleased to have a non-imbecilic answer. “Oh! Actually, I, uh, didn’t get it anywhere. I made it.”

Minkowski blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Encouraged, Eiffel pressed on. “You got a bad first impression, I think, but the old girl lasted for a while. She was one of my better creations—I’m still not sure what went wrong.”

Minkowski laughed a little, shaking her head. “Still, a handmade radio that explodes during class is more impressive than no handmade radio at all.” She paused, considering Eiffel out of the corner of her eye. “Do you have it on you? The radio, I mean?”

“Yeah, actually. It doesn’t work so hot, but…” Eiffel carefully lifted the crystal radio from his backpack. “She can still pick up a few signals if you hold her just right.”

Minkowski braced herself for the coming electronic squeals, but there was only a soft hiss of static.

“Come on, baby,” muttered Eiffel, coaxing the dial a few millimetres to the left. “If the signal’s clear—“

He was interrupted by a burst of static, then a bright, cheerful melody. He grinned at Minkowski, lowering his voice in what he figured was a suave impression of a radio host. “Dear listeners, thanks for tuning in on this fine Friday afternoon. It’s your friendly DJ Doug Eiffel here at WTF Radio, bringing you the hits of the 1700s, 1800s, and now. Don’t touch that dial, cause we’ve got a few hot tunes from the French Revolution that’ll blow your mind.”

Despite herself, Minkowski smiled back. “This is nice. Is this Handel?”

Eiffel snorted. “Do I look like I know? Just enjoy the music, Minkowski.”

She bit back the correction— _Mink-ov-ski, Eiffel—_ and leaned back against the wall. Despite the occasional crackles and pops of static, it was nice to sit like this, listening to classical music. It had been a while since she’d done this—just listened.

As the orchestra reached a climax, the music faded into static. Eiffel flicked off the radio. “Thanks again for tuning in, dear listeners. Sleep well, sweet dreams, and see you—well, see you whenever the signal shows up."

“Are you—” Minkowski hesitated, pretty sure that this was a stupid question. “Are you, you know, _actually_ broadcasting?”

Eiffel’s laugh confirmed that her question had been stupid, and she felt her cheeks grow warm. “Nah, I need a microphone to do that. A microphone, and a _much_ more functional radio. I know how to do it, I’ve just gotta get the right supplies.”

“You know how to do it?” An idea was forming in Minkowski’s mind too fast for her to understand the individual pieces.

“Yep. I had some weird pirate radio station when I was like, thirteen, but it got shut down by the middle school because of ‘inappropriate sexual references’ or something, but if you ask me asking a thirteen-year-old Doug Eiffel not to make dick jokes is like asking—”

“Eiffel, shut up.” Minkowski held up a hand to Eiffel’s defensive scoff. “We’re allowed to design our own products for Communications. Pryce and Carter #32: ‘Students are encouraged to design their own projects in order to develop a sense of independence. Actions have consequences. Projects designed by fifteen-year-olds have consequences. Most everything has consequences, when you get right down to it.’”

Eiffel was giving Minkowski a look that she couldn’t quite decipher. “You lost me. Maybe go back to before things got weirdly existential, my dude.”

Minkowski sighed. “I’m saying we can design our own project, and, well—look, no offence, but I haven’t seen you do _anything_ to prove you’re going to pass that class.”

“Guilty.”

“And, well…” Minkowski winced. “Communications isn’t exactly my strong suit. I haven’t had a genius breakthrough yet, and if I want to be the student ambassador, I’m going to need a genius breakthrough in _every_ class. Pryce and Carter don’t favour average students, or even above-average students. You have to be something really, really special.”

Eiffel raised an eyebrow. “Doth mine ears deceive me? Is the famed Renée Minkowski calling me _special?”_

“Not till you get my name right, Doug.” Minkowski sighed, half-amused, half-annoyed. “And no, I’m not calling _you_ special, I’m saying that, well—teenagers who know how to build their own radios are unique.” The half-formed idea was becoming less blurry around the edges, and Minkowski found herself speaking animatedly, eyes flashing. “Here’s what we do: we build a radio, and we start a radio show. You pick up some music, like that Handel you played earlier, and maybe some other music, like rock music or whatever people like. We can take requests. You can write an essay on the role music plays in communication. I can talk about news, about what’s going on around the school, maybe even use it as a way to campaign for the student ambassador. I write something about the history of the radio and its role in politics.” She was nearly out of breath, cheeks pink with excitement. “And it proves to Ms. Pryce and Mr. Cutter that we’re capable of working well with other students, which, you know, is a valuable skill.”

Eiffel stared at Minkowski, barely able to parse what she was saying. When he was certain she was done, he let out a snort. “That was, without a doubt,” he said slowly, “the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. Jesus, you’re diabolical when it comes to getting an A-plus, huh?”

Minkowski’s face reddened. “It’s a good idea. I’m good at this sort of thing. Anyway, do you have a better idea?” _It’s not like you’re going to pass the class without me,_ she bit back.

Eiffel tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Fair point. Look, how about this: tomorrow, I’ll try to find some spare parts and see if I can’t fix up this tin can. On Monday, we can discuss your, uh, business proposal.”

Minkowski nodded slowly. “Sounds okay,” she said carefully.

“Okay? You were the one crowing over your genius plan to be Cutter’s favourite just two seconds ago.”

“I—yeah, okay. I just…” Minkowski hesitated, trying to phrase this in a tactful way. “You’re sure you’re going to do this? You’re sure you won’t forget tomorrow?”

Eiffel grinned, though he looked a little miffed. “What, you think you can’t trust me?”

“Well, no, I—”

“I’ll remember, Minkowski. Chill. I’m not a complete idiot, you know.” Eiffel pushed himself off the linoleum floor, brushing dust from his jeans. “Look, I gotta get back to my room, okay? Make sure my roommate hasn’t burnt the place down yet.”

Minkowski nodded. “Sure.” She hesitated—should she thank him? For what, doing the bare minimum? For _talking_ to her? “Bye,” she blurted out, but he didn’t seem to hear. Though he was halfway down the hallway, she could tell that he was fiddling with the radio, in a different world.

* * *

Hera knew herself, knew who she was, knew what she had to do. Invisible. Waiting for the right moment. Standing outside the room, _that_ room, holding her breath and counting to ten. Hera—are you there? Hera—are you listening? Hera—you know what to do.

Wait.

It'll come sooner or later. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some fun stuff happens next chapter and I'm really excited to write it!! Also, Kepler is 100% That Asshole in your philosophy class who thinks he knows everything because he read Plato's Republic


	3. Eiffel and Hera

“Engineering Lab, Engineering Lab—oh.” 

It was a numberless, windowless door at the end of the hallway—could have easily been mistaken for a broom closet. Eiffel tried the handle, and, to his delight, it was open. He leapt into the room, already grinning at this weird-ass adventure, and stopped. He wasn’t alone in this broom closet (bigger than it looked on the outside, incidentally). Quite the opposite.

There were three people—apparently students, though Eiffel hadn’t seen them before—surrounded by dozens of batteries, rusted gears, spools of copper wire, and other bits of garbage. Two of them appeared to be having a heated argument over a couple of robots, and the third student sat cross-legged on a desk, looking amused. Eiffel was considering sneaking out, but as he backed towards the door, the third student spotted him.

“Hello,” he said in an odd, slow drawl. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

Eiffel blinked. There was something strange about this kid’s voice, this sort-of-Southern-but-not-really-accent that he couldn't place. His tone was friendly enough, but there was an undercurrent of—what? A threat? 

It didn’t help that this kid was creepily well-dressed for someone who couldn’t be more than nineteen. His orange-red hair was trimmed into a neat crew cut, and his beard was far more successful and better-maintained than Eiffel’s. He was even wearing what looked like a suit jacket. The type you wear for church or a first date. The type Eiffel had worn maybe twice in his life.

Suddenly acutely aware that three strangers were staring at him, Eiffel felt his face grow warm. “Oh! Right. Yeah, well, I’m new. New-ish. I’ve been here for a week, I mean, so, uh, sort of new? New-adjacent. I’m a junior. Eiffel. Like the tower? Well, I mean, my first name’s Doug, but—”

“Warren Kepler. Like the laws of planetary motion.” The redhead grinned in a slow, lazy way. “Fancy running into you here, Eiffel.”

A boy so tall his head almost scraped the ceiling squinted at Eiffel. “Yeah, not to be a dick, but we usually chill in this room on Sundays. Just us. Alone.”

The girl—significantly shorter than the boy, though that could go for everyone in the room—wiped at her forehead, leaving a smudge of grease. “Don’t let Jacobi scare you—his battle drones can’t stay in the sky for more than five seconds.”

“That’s only because you cheat, you cheating cheater!”

“I never cheat. I just bend the rules.”

Kepler shook his head, still smiling in that lazy way of his. “Ignore the Wonder Twins over there,” he said, taking a step over to Eiffel. “They’ve got the social skills of a seven-year-old. Combined.”

“Seven and a _half,”_ interjected the girl. She wiped at the smear of grease, only succeeding in smudging it further. “Anyway, I’m Alana Maxwell.”

“Daniel Jacobi,” added the boy, giving a quick wave.

Eiffel had to bite his cheek to keep himself from laughing. It was all too ridiculous. This senior with his slow drawl, the Wonder Twins, the garbage everywhere—it was too much. Jacobi must have been over six feet tall, all gangly limbs and a few muscles here or there. His black hair was wildly curly; it looked like somebody had attempted to wrangle it into a crew cut, but it escaped. His eyes—one deep brown, one pale blue—seemed to be focused on anything and everything. 

Maxwell, on the other hand—who, incidentally, couldn’t be more than fourteen—looked like she hadn’t focused on any one thing her entire life. Her head was tilted to one side, her grey eyes were somewhere far in the distance, and even when she spoke, it was as though the words were coming from somewhere else. Her feathery brown hair was brushed in a million different directions, maintained by a few haphazardly placed bobby pins.

Kepler smirked at Maxwell and Jacobi, but in a fond sort of way. “They’ve been building battle drones for, oh, six hours now? Still arguing over who’s going to win.”

“Even though we all know the answer,” spoke up Jacobi.

While Maxwell pretended to strangle Jacobi, Kepler sidled up to Eiffel, giving him a sideways look. “So, Eiffel—what brings you to our evil lair?”

“Oh—I was just looking for a spare germanium diode, actually. My roommate said I might find something here.”

Jacobi raised an eyebrow. “A germanium diode? You working on some sort of laser?”

“A radio, actually,” Eiffel corrected him, then immediately wished he hadn’t. A laser sounded way cooler.

“Radio, huh? You’re an old-fashioned guy.” Maxwell regarded Eiffel with a newfound interest.

“Yeah, I guess. I think radio’s pretty cool.” Encouraged, Eiffel pressed on. “It’s just going to be a basic crystal radio—you know, see what weird stations I can pick up around here. But if I can find the right parts, I want to make it a real radio, the type that’ll last me for a while. I want to broadcast. I’ve done it before. I was thinking, you know, I could play some good music, and Minkowski was saying she could report some school news, and—”

Eiffel stopped. Kepler, Jacobi, and Maxwell were exchanging a strange look. “What?” said Eiffel, hoping he hadn’t somehow offended them. Somehow, it didn’t seem like a good idea to be trapped in a room with these three and a couple dozen electric screwdrivers.

“Minkowski? Renée Minkowski?” said Maxwell slowly.

“Yeah—senior? Short hair? Giant stick up her ass? You heard of her?”

Kepler snorted. “Yeah, we’ve heard of her.”

“And?”

A smirk spread across Kepler’s face. “She has, let’s say…perhaps an exaggerated sense of her self-worth.”

“She thinks she’s somehow going to be this year’s student ambassador,” said Jacobi in a matter-of-fact tone. “Even though _everyone_ knows Kepler’s had the position for two years, and the selection’s just a formality at this point."

“Two years? You’re a junior, too?”

A stiff silence fell over the room. “Senior,” said Kepler shortly. “Rachel Young had the position our freshman year. She deserved it. She worked hard.”

Jacobi rolled his eyes. Eiffel felt like he might be missing something.

“Uh—well, I don’t know much about Minkowski, but she seems like the type to get an A-plus on everything, and, well, it can’t hurt, right?”

Nobody seemed willing to answer Eiffel’s question. Either that, or they all assumed it was hypothetical. Either that, or they were all consumed with whatever task they had at hand—which seemed the most likely, since Jacobi and Maxwell were working on their drones again and Kepler had gone back to staring into the distance. 

Eiffel took this as his cue to begin his search. “Jesus, you guys have _everything,”_ he commented, fishing through a drawer of gutted cellphones.

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you attend Goddard Futuristics,” commented Maxwell. “They’ve got access to stuff most people in the outside world could never dream of. Both in terms of quantity and quality. That’s why I’m here.”

“So you can build, uh—battle drones?” Eiffel opened another drawer. Only screwdrivers.

“Well, that’s a fun perk. But no, I’m here because they offer unbelievable opportunities in the field of artificial intelligence development. Plus, you know, they’ve got some dope coding classes for when I’m not planning the robot revolution.”

Jacobi and Kepler laughed, but Eiffel got the sense she wasn’t completely joking. “Oh. Uh, cool.” He jerked his chin at Jacobi. “I assume you’re here to assist in the revolution?”

“Eh, more or less.” If possible, Jacobi looked more disinterested in Eiffel than Maxwell. “I’m good at blowing stuff up. But I’m good at other stuff, too. How about you?”

Eiffel slammed a drawer louder than he needed to, hoping that he could draw attention away from the question. “You blow stuff up? That’s cool. I mean—only if you’re doing it in, you know, a _good_ way, like a demolition expert, but I assume that you are, because, you know, you seem like a decent person. Probably better than decent. Well, I don’t actually know you too well, but—” He opened a drawer. Jackpot. “Hey, found it!”

Eiffel picked up one of the long, thin diodes and considered the size. It would probably work—maybe it wouldn’t be the strongest, but it still looked relatively new. Either way, it gave him an excuse to get out of this room. No matter how friendly the three of them were, there was still something about this room that gave him the creeps.

He became uncomfortably aware that there were three pairs of eyes on him. “Uh—thanks,” he said abruptly, tightening his fingers around the germanium diode. “You know, for letting me raid your—you said it was an evil lair, didn’t you?”

“Sure, no problem.” Kepler waved away his words with a flick of his hand. “It’s not technically _our_ lair; it’s Goddard’s lair. Stop by any time.”

“Cool! Cool. Thanks, guys.” Eiffel gave a cheery wave before clumsily jogging out the door. 

The room remained silent for a few minutes. Jacobi was the first to speak. “If he interrupts us again, I’m going to shove that stupid germanium diode up his—”

“Oh, for sure,” Maxwell agreed before he could finish the thought. “I figured that was a given.”

Kepler nodded. “Naturally.”

* * *

Centipedes appeared on earth 430 million years ago.

It was the sort of fact that was sort of upsetting, if you thought about it long enough. Hera had been thinking about it since she woke up this morning, and while it wasn’t quite upsetting enough to cause any real damage, it was starting to throw her off a bit.

430 million years. Centipedes were like living fossils, like dinosaurs walking amongst humans, and nobody really gave them much thought. To be fair, they were one of the more disgusting animals out there—Hera tried to be fair to grosser animals, but there was no denying how _crawly_ they were—but still, they didn’t seem malicious. A chaotic neutral invertebrate, really. Not an insect—she had learned that last night. She had learned a lot about centipedes last night. It happened that way sometimes—one minute you were trying to fall asleep, the next minute you were on the Wikipedia page for _Myriapoda_ , and, well you could imagine where the night went from there.

Hera inhaled sharply, then let her breath out in a slow, even hiss. _Focus._ This always had a way of happening to her—she was trying to figure out which notebooks she needed to bring to class, and the next moment, she was off in another world thinking about centipedes or Gilbert and Sullivan operas or the moral implications of almond milk consumption.

She wouldn’t have minded it so much if, well, if there weren’t other people who stared at you when this sort of thing happened. She wasn’t much for talking. This seemed to bother other people a whole lot more than it bothered her.

At least her roommate didn’t seem to be much of a talker, either. Hera barely remembered her name—Anna? Iliana? Whatever her name was, she seemed to only sleep for a few hours each night, and always left before Hera woke up.

Hera glanced at her wristwatch, and sighed. Somehow, she had managed to lose ten minutes staring into space, and though she wasn’t running late, she wasn’t having the early start she had hoped for. She heaved her backpack over her shoulder and allowed herself a final glimpse in the mirror. Don’t focus on your eyes. Don’t focus on your nose or hair or the rest of your body or anything just—focus on your lips.

She mouthed a few practice words to herself, watching the syllables spring to life in the curves and valleys of her lips.

_Invertebrate. Four hundred and thirty. Myriapoda._

The words came out easily enough. Of course. It was never a problem when she was _alone._ It was the other people who were the problem, really. 

As though the universe knew exactly what she was thinking, a shout echoed down the hallway. “Hey!”

Hera flinched. Usually, she just assumed people weren’t talking to her, and that worked out all right, but there was nobody else in the hallway. She peered over her shoulder and saw a slightly sweaty boy who looked like he had just rolled out of bed. In one hand, he carried a thick red book.

“Hey,” he repeated, a little out of breath; he had been running after Hera. “I don’t know your name, but—you dropped this.” He held out the book.

Hera’s eyes flickered with recognition. “Oh! Oh. Well…thanks.” She had gotten through that much, at least.

The boy tilted his head in acknowledgement. “What’s the book?” he said, tilting his head to see the cover.

Hera felt her face heating up. She hated her throat for closing up, hated her heart for beating faster, hated her _stupid_ tongue for never working the way she wanted it to. “It’s, it’s—it’s, uh, _Confessions._ S-Saint Augustine.”

The boy nodded. If he noticed her stutter, he didn’t say anything. “It looks, uh, you know, boring.”

Despite herself, Hera felt a smile twitch at the corner of her mouth. “It’s n-n-not that bad.”

He raised an eyebrow dubiously, looking as though he expected her to say something else. Clearly, though, he wasn’t a person who was very comfortable with silence, and he spoke again. “Are you new here? Before you dropped your book, I was watching you—” He caught a glimpse of Hera’s expression, and backtracked rapidly, running a hand through his dark hair. “Not in a creepy way! I saw you, and, well, you looked kind of lost.”

Hera had to laugh. The idea of being lost in Goddard, of all places— “No, I’m—I’m not lost. B-But you—you’re, you’re new.” She sized him up and remembered where she had seen him. “Oh! Eiffel. Doug Eiffel. Junior year, right? Transferred from somewhere in Texas.”

A line appeared between Eiffel’s eyebrows. “How do you know that?”

Red heat bloomed across Hera’s face. _Nice job, Hera. Your social skills are truly astonishing._ “I—I grew up around here,” she struggled to explain. “I…you know, I wanted to read up on the new students, and—and I saw some of the d-documents. I don’t know m…much—just the b-b-basics.”

Eiffel looked slightly relieved. “Huh. Okay.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, looking a little more guarded than he had a few seconds ago. “You have a name, or do you just know everyone else’s?”

Hera noticed he didn’t hold his hand out to shake, a fact which made her warm to Eiffel a little more. “Hera.”

Eiffel raised an eyebrow. “Like the goddess? Jeez, a little intimidating there, Juno. Something else I can call you?”

Hera felt heat creep up from her neck. She shook her head. “Hera is fine.”

To her relief, Eiffel didn’t press any further. “So, Hera—what’s your story?”

“M-My story?”

“Yeah, your story.” Eiffel led the way with a certain lazy gait, playing a one-person game of catch with his textbook. “You new here? A veteran? What classes are you taking? How come you’re here, anyway?” He snapped his fingers. “No, wait—don’t tell me. Computer genius? Eidetic memory?”

Hera laughed, though his proximity to the truth made her uncomfortable. “I’m, uh, a sophomore. Second year. As for how I got h-here, just—just got a few connections, is-is all. N-N-Nothing special.”

“Oh. Huh.”

A long silence filled the air, and Hera sensed that she’d lost him. “What about, uh, what about you?”

Eiffel went back to playing catch with himself. “Oh, just lucky, I guess.” He paused outside of the biochemistry classroom, brushing a strand of black hair away from his eyes. “Here’s where I get off. But, uh—quick question.”

Hera nodded. “Shoot.”

“Tell me, Hera—is this school always so fucking _bizarre?”_

Hera snorted, not certain if he was completely joking. “Y-You get used to it,” she said, shaking her head. Well, m-most of it, I—I guess. You’ve got b-b-b-biochemistry now? So do I, and, uh, the teacher—“”

“Hey!” Eiffel’s face lit up. “Same class!”

“Right.” Hera ignored his unspoken request for a high five. “W-Well, it’s with Hilbert, this—this student teacher who’s b-b-been here for, oh, three years, m-maybe?” She flashed Eiffel a smile. “Y-Y-You don’t get used to him.”

Eiffel snorted. “Tell me about it.”

Hera raised an eyebrow. Or at least she tried. “What’s that mean?”

He gave an ironic smile, jaw a little too tight for it to be genuine. “It means he’s my roommate.”

Hera considered the boy for a few seconds before snorting with disbelief. He gave her a begrudging smile, and she allowed herself to break down into laughter. After a few moments, he joined her. “Really?” she snorted. Picturing Hilbert rooming with _anyone_ was difficult to imagine—his roommate last year had transferred within the first two weeks—but for some reason, nothing was funnier to her than imagining Eiffel and Hilbert rooming together.

Eiffel tilted his head, as though acknowledging the lunacy. “Yeah, well, it’s not like I’ve got a choice, right?” He gave her a sideways glance. “He’s not going to, like, turn me into a guinea pig or anything, right?”

The corners of Hera’s lips twitched. “N-Not as far as I know. But first time for everything, r-r-right?”

Eiffel muttered something under his breath. Hera laughed, somewhat encouraged— _not bad for your first day back, Hera, and you didn't even mention centipedes once—_ and followed him into the classroom.

* * *

 

Alexander Hilbert had a particular talent for knowing things. He’d always known things. It was his job.

He’d been accused of being a know-it-all ever since he could speak, but really, was it such an insult when it was the truth? Because he did know things. He knew—well, he knew _almost_ everything.

He knew that the trigeminal nerve was the largest cranial nerve. He knew exactly what happened to your hair after exposure to 200 rems. He knew where Young and Kepler had those top-secret meetings they thought were so important. He knew where Hera went on the weekends. He knew Eiffel’s social security number.

But he also knew that most of what he knew didn’t matter in the slightest. What mattered was what he did. What mattered was if he did it well.

And he knew that, according to Cutter, he’d better start doing a whole lot better if he ever wanted to do anything meaningful.

He stood outside the door of the biochemistry classroom, getting his bearings. It didn’t matter what happened in the class, he reminded himself—this was just something to occupy his time, just something so that Cutter could justify giving him funding and a place to stay. Because Cutter _needed_ him. He reminded himself of this every day: they needed him. He wasn't just a cog in the machine like everybody else.

Taking a final breath, he stepped through the door and let it slam shut behind him. His eyes grazed across the first few rows. A relatively large class, at least by Goddard’s standards; but they all looked uninvolved enough, and—

And Isabel Lovelace was there.

Hilbert felt something burning creeping through his chest, turning ice cold as it reached his extremities. His jaw clenched, and he could feel his teeth turning to powder, but he didn’t care, because _Isabel Sofia Lovelace is here, she’s not supposed to be here, she’s here and she’s not supposed to be and—_

And she didn’t noice him. In fact, she didn’t seem to notice anything. She sat sideways in the last row, head tilted to the side, staring at a water stain on the ceiling like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. Rumour had it that she wasn’t the same anymore, whatever “the same” meant. That, at least, was something to be grateful for.

And this was what Alexander Hilbert knew:

This year was his last chance. (More realistically, it was whatever came after “last chance”; Goddard had given him plenty of last chances before.)

Isabel Lovelace was in his classroom.

Isabel Lovelace was not supposed to be there.

And nobody had told him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay listen this might sound like an uncreative chapter title but listen I'm stealing all the chapter titles from Alan Rodi's song titles and this chapter is where Eiffel and Hera meet and it was just the title that best fit this chapter so??????? Who's the uncreative one now?????? checkmate ?
> 
> (Also: I'm going to try to get into a more regular update schedule, because if I don't set a time limit for myself, I just go two months without writing anything. So: I'm tentatively going to say that new chapters will be published on Fridays!)
> 
> Comments are always appreciated. Also, if you liked it, tell a friend mayhaps!


	4. I Really Should Get Into Exercising Starting Tomorrow

Lovelace couldn’t sleep. It wasn't surprising, not at this point—it would have been infinitely more surprising if she’d managed to fall asleep at some normal, _human_ time. Or even an inhuman time.

But the fact remained that it was three A.M. and she was still staring at the ceiling, counting down the hours to daybreak. Her roommate’s slow, steady breathing unnerved her, as did the way she always slept perfectly still on her back—who _did_ that?

Not for the first time, she wished that Minkowski would be a little louder. A little more messy, a little more blurred around the edges. Not like it really mattered, but it would have made Lovelace feel a little less like a freak.

Lovelace squeezed her eyes shut. Red spots bloomed under her eyelids, dissipating when she opened her eyes. _All right. Take a walk, Isabel. Take a turn on the bench. C’mon, Isabel, let somebody else take a turn._ Take a rest, take a shower, do _something_ other than lying in a strange bed in a strange building and letting half-memories blossom, because in the morning, you know you won’t be able to tell the truth from dreams.

And she found herself in the hallway, running through concrete walls. She took a breath, inhaled sawdust, lemony cleaning fluid. No matter how old she got, there was still something delicious about running in the hallways, especially when it was long past midnight. 

Lovelace knew this place. She knew the way her sneakers clung to the freshly waxed hallways, knew the smell of dust and mildew the further into the basement you got, knew the way the ceilings hung low and the walls clung to your shoulders.

Goddard was never dark, though. She appreciated that. Even now, at this frankly ungodly hour, the hallways glowed with a quiet fluorescence that made her shiver. It was better than wandering around dark hallways with a flashlight. The last thing she needed was to feel like she was some last-girl type of cliche in a bad horror movie. She had enough of that already.

_Enough._ Deep breath, enough that her lungs ached. She knew this place. Isabel Lovelace remembered things. She didn't forget. She remembered—or her feet remembered, and she wandered through the halls, and she let her three-in-the-morning feet guide her, and she found herself in the weight room.

She ran her fingers through her hair, roughly guiding it into an elastic. _Same as it ever was, Isabel._ The weights remained on the shelves; the benches were where they belonged, and when she sat on them, it was right.

Unconscious of her actions, she selected a pair of dumbbells and allowed heat to spread through her arms. The memories flooded in, cold and miserable and like drowning in an unfamiliar swimming pool, and she closed her eyes. Selected something heavier. Breathe. Don't think. Feel your arms scream and your chest burn and don't think, remember, don't think.

Her brain shifted into something quiet, something methodical. She counted every action through a sweaty haze— _One. Two. Three.—_

—And flashes of memory cut through her sweaty haze, ice-cold and jarring. _Star charts. H.P. Lovecraft. Strawberry ice cream. Not the time for your stupid jokes_. And she remembered something that Lambert had said, something Sam had said, about the homework, about the star charts—

Something fresh cut through her thoughts, jarring her out of her reverie. She put down the weights, breath slowing. 

Cutter. His voice stopped her short, froze her to the bone. Cutter, awake, nearby.

"I don't like it," Lovelace made out. His voice was flat, oddly devoid of any of the emotion emotion she had come to associate with his sickening cheer. 

A new voice—female, one that Lovelace didn't recognize—cut in. "Whether you care for his experiments is irrelevant. He's making progress."

"Slow progress." 

"Progress is progress. We can't afford to be impatient, not at this juncture."

"And I'd say we can't afford to be this lenient. Not at this _juncture._ ”

The voices echoed through the empty hall, growing closer, sharper, more audible. Lovelace held her breath, ducking behind the weight bench, drawing her knees to her chest.

Research. Disease. Lovelace was suddenly impossible aware of the blood in her head, felt an unpleasant pounding behind her eyes. Her ears, too, felt suddenly clogged. Static filled her skull, her eyes, her ears, and for a moment, she worried she might pass out. 

The static cleared. The woman was saying something else—something about the first day, whatever that meant. 

"She wasn't in class." Her voice was flat.

"Miranda." There was a short pause, and Lovelace could just imagine Cutter's hand snaking around to her neck, offering comfort that should have been welcoming but couldn't help but be slimy. And the voices were gone, and the footsteps were gone, in a dreamlike haze. 

Lovelace’s muscles were heavy, as though she had been swimming for hours on end. She rested her head between her knees, suddenly two exhausted to move. 

Two hours of sleep, maybe. Two hours was doable. 

Sleep was sleep, no matter where you got it, and it was a rare commodity these days.

* * *

A few snatches of music burst through the air, quickly overwhelmed by static. Eiffel cursed, absentmindedly jiggling his leg as he fiddled with the antennae.

"You're shaking the whole table," muttered Minkowski. "Any chance that's interfering?"

Eiffel scowled at her, but didn't make any effort to stop his movement. 

A louder burst of music spilled through the tinny speakers, clearer. Gentle strings vibrated from the radio as the signal seemed to settle. 

"That's pretty," said Minkowski, leaning forwards. "Is that Bach?"

Eiffel shrugged. "I dunno. Something old." The song neared its climax, and he mimed a microphone, leaning close to the radio. "Radio America, broadcasting the world! Freedom fighters, act now, stand up—“

"It's really staticky," commented Minkowski, either ignoring Eiffel or completely oblivious. 

As if on command, the signal faded into nothingness. A collective groan went up among the two—even Eiffel, who had to admit that even if it was some unrecognizable, lyric-less music, it was better than nothing. 

"Damn it." Minkowski leafed through her Communications notebook viciously, as though she could find some solution among the blank pages. "Why can't we get anything?"

Eiffel shrugged again, flipping the switch for good. "Sometimes it's hard to get a signal inside. Shouldn't be this hard, though—we’re in the middle of nowhere, but we're not underground or anything. It would be easier if we were, like, right next to a radio tower or something, then we could troubleshoot this and see if proximity's actually the problem, or if it's something, you know, mechanical—"

"There, there's a—a radio tower."

Eiffel blinked at the familiar voice. Hera was in this class. Of course. He twisted around to find her sitting at a desk several rows back, leaning forward as though she had been listening to the whole conversation.

"There's a radio tower?" he repeated.

Hera bobbed her head, cheeks slightly flushed. She looked out of her element, delighted to be pressed for information. "It's not very far away, either—a fifteen-m-m-minute walk, maybe, if we, we t-take the short way around. It's on Goddard's p—on Goddard's land, s-so it's not like you'll, you'll be trespassing or anything."

Minkowski glanced from Hera to Eiffel to the radio to Hera back again. "Have you always been in this class?"

Hera nodded. "Hera," she said by way of introduction.

"I met her a couple days ago," Eiffel elaborated. "Grew up around here. Reads boring books. Apparently knows a lot about radios."

Hera shook her head almost viciously, short hair whipping at her cheeks. "Only that we have a tower," she said hastily.

"That's more than we knew before." Eiffel began to fiddle with a switch on the side of the radio, on and off and on again, without really thinking about his actions. 

"You could take us there," he blurted out, suddenly directing his attention towards Hera. "Yes! Yeah, you could take us there, ’cause you said you knew a shortcut, right? Well, show us the shortcut, and we'll go and check out the radio tower, get close, maybe even go inside if there's something there. That way we can see if this is a connections issue or something deeper, you know, in the actual hardware." His dark eyes flashed, and he was smiling suddenly, and if he was embarrassed for getting so excited about a school project, he tried not to show it. "You can join us! Three people! What's the rule, Minkowski—the rule about group projects?"

Minkowski was smiling suddenly, too, in her own reserved way. “Pryce and Carter #32.”

“Students are encouraged to design their own projects in order to develop a sense of independence,” Hera recited. Then, at Eiffel’s look of reproach— _I thought you were cool, Hera, not Minkowski—_ she hastened to add, “It—it gets kind of existential from there.”

Eiffel and Minkowski both nodded in acknowledgement.

A small line appeared between Minkowski’s eyebrows. “Hera, are we…allowed to do this? Is it against any rules?”

Hera tilted her head in thought. “No,” she said, after a short pause. “Not directly.”

Minkowski stiffened. “Not _directly—”_

“—Which means we can’t get in trouble, not if it doesn’t actually violate any rules,” Eiffel cut in. “We got a plan, dude. Which is better than what we had yesterday.”

And Minkowski, unfortunately, had to agree with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you abandon a fic for six months, what can ya do ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> (In all seriousness: sorry for abandoning. I still care about this fic and I care about what's going to happen and I'm EXCITED about what's going to happen. This chapter is.... a little boring, not gonna lie, but I'm going to try to update at least once per week.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! This is my attempt at making a Wolf 359 high school AU, which is something I've been thinking about for a while! It's obviously not a completely normal high school, because, y'know, Wolf 359, and Mr. Cutter, and stuff, so there are going to be Some Things, but yeah, there's still going to be a place for some classic high school AU tropes B-)
> 
> I'm going to try to update this semi-regularly. Comments and feedback are highly appreciated! Love you guys
> 
> (Chapter titles come from the wonderful Alan Rodi—some from https://wolf359radio.bandcamp.com/album/wolf-359-soundtrack-vol-1, some from https://soundcloud.com/wolf359radio)


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